State IT reports progress, tools purchased to meet DOJ accessibility ruling; legal risk remains

Craig Felkley, chief technology officer for the state, briefed the Budget Section on efforts to comply with a Department of Justice ruling that requires digital services to meet WCAG accessibility standards.

Felkley said the state created a unified command structure to coordinate remediation and purchased Siteimprove to scan and inventory the digital landscape. He listed expenditures from special-session funding: Siteimprove licensing ($508,000 for two years), about $11,600 so far on advanced PDF remediation licenses (with more licenses planned), roughly $350,000 for application remediation work, $377,500 to assist agencies with remediation tasks, a $10,000 training spend to date, and a $240,000 reserve for additional training or tooling.

Felkley said the state has made “a lot of progress” on websites (most agencies may be 5–10 percentage points closer to compliance in recent months) but noted application-level remediation is more labor-intensive because it requires manual, screen‑by‑screen review and code changes. He said he expects websites and PDFs to be largely in better shape by the end of the biennium but cautioned that “applications will take a lot more modernization efforts and rewrites.”

Committee members asked whether the April 24 compliance date was achievable and about enforcement risk. Felkley replied that while most agencies should be close on websites, he would not say the application front will be complete by April 24 and that the primary legal risk is lawsuits from DOJ or private citizens; the state is focusing on minimizing exposure through rapid remediation, training and tools.

Felkley said the state is sharing resources and training with political subdivisions (cities and counties) and coordinating with the League of Cities and Association of Counties, but the diversity of local technology stacks makes baseline assessment more difficult for nonstate entities.